I watched a very horrific movie yesterday – mainly because the movie portrays my greatest fear – diving and being underwater. I went to bed at 1230am and although I am sleeping, I think sub-consciously I am having these images from the movies flashed in my eyes until I woke up in sweats at 3am. I had to go switch on my air-con, drink some water, put on my blubblegum flavour gloss and check my twitter to calm myself down…before attempting to go back to bed. I wonder how long this movie is going to haunt me this time.

Sanctum – An action-thriller talk about a team of underwater cave divers who went on an cave expedition was forced deeper into the cave by a storm with sudden huge influx of water. In their attempt to find an escape route, they need to dive through a simply narrow tunnel to an underwater labyrinth which they don’t know where this path will lead them to?

Victoria was part of the crew; she is the most inexperienced diver in the group and having needed to go through this, she is panicky and scared. Of course she eventually died a terribly horrible death. (Not surprisingly at all). I can feel myself in her shoes! If I am her, I think that is most probably what will be happen to me!

I get this question a lot: “what is so scary about diving underwater?”

1. Descending freaks me out big time. Just watching the sea water level rises bit by bit covering your mask more and more is just really fearful for me. And my greatest fear is when I go down, I may never come back up…

2. The feeling of being underwater. It is quiet, damn quiet (although to some people is serene, tranquil, soothing..WHATEVER.). I can only hear my own breathing and that freaks me out! The water is dark, murky and spooky which is a very uncomfortable environment to be in.

3. I’m completely surrounded and submerged by water and I may drown! Ok now I think I know the worst way to die is to drown, is it???

4. I had to breathe through this regulator thingy (it is weird and alien to me) and I hate breathing through my mouth, at the same time fearing air will run out!!! I don’t think my buddy will be there to save me by doing the alternate breathing thingy, anyway even if she saves me, i think I will die of panic first!!!

Simply put, diving underwater is my greatest fear and i don’t intend to overcome it!

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its been a week. went around shopping in birmingham and nottingham but seems like the wishlist will not be totally fulfilled..

weather is cooling at 1 – 6 deg.

took a bus to nottingham this morning. and so coincidentally, an old lady who boarded the bus with me this morning was on the same bus going back kegworth in the afternoon. how qiao is tat…

Prada seems like a brand that only available in capitals of the country.  very likely people cannot afford tat expensive stuffs in the smaller cities and no reason to bring them in. had a hard time finding them and still couldn’t get the models in the wishlist…

i kinda understand why they like to use “cheers”… probably becos the place is gloomy and despressing where u need to remind each other to stay cheerful? haha… its a bad weather today. no sun in the afternoon. looks like late evening on a 12o’clock afternoon.

on bus back to hotel… i saw houses along the street. i will really like to buy one of the house and retire watching the sunset and sunrise. relax the day with my wife. do some grocery and cooking… drive out and see the world… chances are low but i do hope to have such a time.

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had a bad nite today… probably go to bed after writing this post.

all was well during the day… started when i came back to the hotel. i went out to pharmacy to get some cream on my peeling face. take away some chinese food where the boss came from hongkong. they probably got curious of where i came from since this is UK and hard to find chinese in this small village or outskirt. told them i was from singapore and chatted a bit on why i come here.

went back to hotel and turned on the TV. the screen was blanked. didn’t know wad happened. i took a look at the back and the console was powered on. made a call to the receptionist. she came up after 5 mins and said probably the cable came off. and sure it was tat fault. i mus have been blind and not seen tat cable came off while i looked at the back.

one problem solved. lay out my dinner. turned on the laptop. damned… the wifi cannot b connected. made a call to check if the wifi has problems. and the receptionist said was working fine. i tried with my hp and couldnt get it working as well. seriously suspect that the wifi is down. i even restore the laptop. didn’t worked. saw a network point. plugged in with the lan cable. didn’t worked either. after some tries.. i managed to get it working. tried with my hp and it worked as well.

went to take a shower. they got 2 shower points here. 1 with the bath tub while the other is standing. usually had my bath at the standing side. the heater seems instant. for some reason it was warm when i turned it on. wet myself and find that the water is getting colder and colder. tried to increase the temp but didn’t work. got even colder. came out from the shower point and got in the bath tub. mix the cold and hot water. finally got a nice bath.

wad a night… hopefully tmrw gets better.

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so today is the 3rd day since i arrive here in UK. took a flight on SQ308 sunday morning 9am. 14hrs of flight and i watched 4 movies and 3 tv drama on Nikita? touched at 3.30pm UK time. picked up by airport taxi. approx. 2.5hrs road ride to the hotel. nothing much on the surrounding here. a small village according to the driver. 

its abt 6am here while i typing this. 2pm back at home.

not going to b some exciting post cos i m here in UK Derby for business trip. hotel facilities are not bad. gym and indoor swimming pool. decent meals at 17pounds and 1 pint of beer for like 4pounds. wine are selling real cheap here in the super mart like 5pounds for a bottle. we r really chopped on the head for drinking wines back in sg. weather is cooling. lowest at 2deg while highest at 11deg. strong wind blowing every minute… good idea to have jacket on.

went down to the supermart and bought some chocos for 2pounds. think its slightly cheaper here on the choco. right as i said. not much to post. just some pictures that i have taken.

i think this is breakfast on the plane?

tis is lunch on plane but photos are shaky due to turbulence.

jus outside the hotel.

wonder if u can see the price tag. they range from 4 pounds to 7 pounds. dead cheap compare to sg.

dinner i had last nite. derbyshire pork.

and all these for 2 pounds.

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wah C.. zhai lor… wrote 3 post in a go…

so its cny soon… and its going to b 2 years since fifi passed away. 11th Mar to be exact. we used to bring her out for every cny for the past 15yrs. and she just luv the mandarin oranges.. still misses her so much.. she not the first dog i have but probably the last that i will have..

in a few days time i will b on the plane to UK for 3 weeks maybe. i probably have more time and chance to blog what i see. but it could b the other way round. nothing to blog cos the place i gg is gonna b some outskirt where the bird dun even wanna lay eggs there…

anyway did some house cleaning… not much cos i nvr liked hse cleaning. i prefer to have the minimum things so that i dun need to do any spring cleaning during cny… simple, nice and convenient. but i found quite a few receipts. one has 9 pax name on it. that will be the travel insurance for the 9 pax. another has cy’s name on it. the header is OAK hotel. haha. right. that was our trip to Japan. that was a real nice trip ya. frm kyoto to osaka to mt. fuji to tokyo. curry rice at kyoto; going out at midnite for supper jus the guys onli and forced by hm to drink Asahi beer.. universal studio at osaka.. onsen @ mt. fuji.. i remember cy ate HORSE meat in mt. fuji. my breed ya.. but i let it go cos i eat chicken almost everyday… haha. onsen was quite an interesting experience figuring out the purpose of the big and small towel.. tokyo was more on the tsukiji fish market. queuing 2hrs for the sushi? another memorable meal was shabu shabu buffet.. simply nice and filling.. remembered one nite we had a dinner at a restaurant wif refillable rice. how could we forget the experience at the sushi bar… Ooooeeeii !!!!!!

would luv to go there again. maybe the nxt trip will b gg to hakone?

my wedding band brand..

cy and her fav. KFC

2 hrs for this??

hm’s bdae…

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Around beginning dec 2006… i was struggling with my final ACCA exams and at the same time, going for interviews. I chanced upon this ad by RecruitExpress looking for an accounting position for an Investment Company.

I managed to secure an interview and this guy, apparently the Head of Finance interviewed me. His composition and the way he talks to me are one of the main reasons i decided to take up the offer.

Fast forward and into months and years later, I find myself still in the same place although he has already left the Company. When he left, it took me a very long while to accept this fact, i kept thinking maybe he will come back but he didn’t. Things got alittle better when the new boss comes in but things are not the same anymore. I will always remember G, he gave me a chance to join this company and believe in me when no one else did. He told me he believe in his choice and he will defend it.

I wanted to tell him, happy birthday and always I will be grateful for this chance and because he gave me this chance years ago, my life is never the same again. He changed my life forever.

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Athens is very much a cosmopolitan city like Singapore except it is full of rich history and ancient ruins. Athens population is abt 3m (Sg’s 5m), I was shocked at the numbers if I remember them correctly. We are seriously over-crowded here!

A little history background; Mythology states that both Athena and Poseidon  complete against each other to be the patrons of the City and both created a gift offering to the City. Athena created the olive tree which symbolise peace and prosperity. The ruler of the city accepted Athena’s gift and name the city after Athena.

There are also afew places you definitely have to visit in Athens, the most famous ruins is the Arcopolis which literally mean ‘high grounds’ and wherever u go, u can see the Arcopoli because it perched high up there. This is also the most unforgettable ruins i visited. You can see the entire civilisation from the Acropoli. I think Acropoli is also an UNESCO World Heritage Site (although now that I tried to google but couldnt confirm this fact). Anything which is a UNESCO heritage site or a wonder of the world is a place worth visiting.

I saw afew more ruins in Athens and went up Northern Mainland Greece to Delphi. Delphi is famous for it being a major site for the worship of the god Apollo, naturally i went to the Temple of Apollo. This day of my trip is a ‘getting lost day’ as it is pretty difficult to ask people as 1. not much people around 2. they spoke in languages I dont understand. The mountain air in Delphi is so fresh and crisp, reminding me of Switzerland. I really could stay there for afew days relaxing and breathing in fresh air instead of doing just a day trip.

Greece is full of Greek islands and if you are not an ‘island person’, mainland Greece itself is equally offering. Central Greece, Peloponnese, Northern Greece etc. You can see different things at different places but its just one country alone. I envisage myself visiting Mainland Greece when I retire next time. Turkey is just next to Greece and Italy (Rome nearest) nearby. I decided to en route to Rome when flying back home.

I visited Rome afew years back with Lyn, I have to say it is still quite the same as before. I went to Rome City (the subways sucks, its sort of in a state of ‘construction in progress’ but that literally super run-down constructing subways and stations are the real deals). The usual Colosseum, Spanish steps, Vatican City…

Naples – Pompeii and to Sorrento (Aussie has a Sorrento too?! Haa!). I went to Naples and bought another similar necklace back..i love the one I used to had.

I ended my trip with shopping at Spanish steps and apparently an-afternoon of  shopping time is not enough!!!! I know now.

Cheers, C.

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Guys!

2010 past ridiculously fast and 2011 arrived without me having much preparation for it. Havent had time to sit down and think about how 2010 has gone for me, have you?

Last year was a really busy year for me at work due to alot of restructuring happening at work. The consolidated accounts post restructuring is really complicated to review, amongst all other million things happening together. I can go on and on…Haa! But other than work, work and work, i made a really amazing decision to go travelling in Sep. It was not an easy decision but I am so glad I made this choice.

“All the things i still remember,
Summers never looked the same,
Years go by and and time just seems to fly,
But the memories remain.
In the middle of September.
…nothing to lose but everything to gain
reflecting now on how things could have been
It was worth it in the end.”

A song lyrics meant different things to the singer and me but coincidentally appropriate for both.

I always wanted to go Santorini Island, my most ideal destination for honeymoon (having visited Italy and Maldives). “So what am I waiting for?” I asked myself every single day??? Maybe its the hope that my future hubby can visit this romantic place with me but i finally decided that life is really too short to be spent on waiting for things to happen like that. So i made words become actions and off i fly to Greece!

Santorini is really beautiful, one of the most beautiful places I visited in my life. 11 hours flying time from Sin to Athens and 6 hours boat ride from Athens to Santorini = OK LA. ITS SO WORTH IT! I will definitely go back there again. Grilled sardines with lemon sauce and basil leaves are my favourite there! Yummy!

Its taking a long while to upload photos so i guess i will jus continue talking here. The Aegean Sea was kinda black, dark and dangerous, not the crystal clear Maldives water to expect. I did a dip in it anyway…its like a dream come true! Dont ask if I prefer Santorini or Maldives because i find it really difficult to answer, my advice is visit both!

The second Greek island i visited is Mykonos (pronounced as Mi-ko-nos). Mykonos is famous for its night-life (not that i went partying there hehe). The apartment I stayed in is Marina View. The pictures on the website are non-photoshop pics and it is really that beautiful. I stayed in an apartment with sea view, the most expensive apartment I choose throughout my entire trip because I am so attracted to its dazzling photos on the website. I could just sit on my day bed at my patio looking into the sparkling sea forever. I left Mykonos with a really heavy heart to Rome for some shopping.

These two island i went to are the more popular Greek Island tourists will visit, among so much moreeee. Naxos, Paros, Crete, Rhodes etc…. I will visit them all one day.

I will blog about Athens and Rome ( 2 amazing cites in their own way) in the next entry.

Cheers, C

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Alrite. Its been quite a while since the last post. In fact its been a long time. Lol. Celeste actually said that she will post one after mine. (I hope she won’t b posting abt her ring and bags) I was thinking of what to post and *bing* I tot of our Australia trip.

 Lets recap our itinerary.

We departed from Changi (of cos!!) with friends and relatives sending us off. The feeling is like we are leaving sg for ages. Weird!!

Initial plan was to have dinner wif those who came to send us off. But somehow or rather time is just not enuff… cos the MRT is so slow compared to vtec.

Zzzzzzz… yes yes yes I was late for like 10mins. We ended up at subway after the immigration check point.

 We were on the plane for god knows how long… (not that long actually. Only 8 hrs?)… fell aslp in the midway. I think last survivor was the gay boy…

First stop is Melbourne…. After touchdown we collected our baggage but some gay boy had problem wif the immigration officer. Hahaha.

I can’t remember the exact. Maybe ask the gayboy. He shld remember it all his life.

Immigrant officer: “where u staying?”

Gayboy: “Melbourne”

Immigrant officer: “that’s where I am staying”

Gayboy: “which part are you staying?”

Immigrant officer: “that’s exactly what I am asking for….”

Apparently, he didn’t put the hotel name on the immigration card….

 So we took a coach and met up with D’s fren at Southern Cross stn. We took a subway to central stn (correct?) wherever lar. And walk to the hostel, Victoria or something.

The receptionist got a pair of pretty eyes… or was it another hostel? I think shld b this cos we had some problems wif the balance sheet. Hahaha. We cant tally the balance after deducting the deposit.

Best part is the accountant is sitting there waiting for the room key. Hahaha. Jus some minor calculation error.

 Where did we go after that??? I cant really recall.

Need to look at photos to flash back…. We went for a walk nearby the hotel since we cant check in yet.

Had sandwiches for breakfast… wasn’t that nice… but they got a beef pie from 7-11 which tasted real nice. I think it mus b real nice cos hm was having pies every other day.

Probably that makes him the “pie kia”….

So we walked around and took some photos. I guess we went to Queen Victoria’s market. Bought some doughnuts… a little too sweet… which was best for ym. Hahaha

Check in to hotel blah blah blah… can’t remember where we went aft that. But I think we met D’s fren again for dinner. They treated us for the dinner. Then, we had ice cream after dinner with 5 or 10 deg wind blowing hard at us. Shiok rite!! Damn nice to have ice cream during that weather…. All the shivering from the ice cream and wind is something u won’t get.. back in this hot island.

Woke up early  the nxt day… not becos of the itinerary we planned but becos of the noisy reno going onz… Zzzzzzz. Did we go to puffy billy this day? I think we did rite? We had breakfast at burger king at the subway. And took a train to this lily stn. Somehow there is reno going on the tracks. We disembark and transit in a bus….

We took a 2 hrs to puffy billy to find that the steam train is fully packed for 12pm ride. We decided to go for the nxt ride which is like 2pm or something. While waiting, we went looking for food (again?? We just cant stop eating… dun bother asking how many meals we had in Japan trip… countless). Hey but we found a really nice café which does simply the best fish and chips we had thru out the Aus trip.

Big, fresh, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and cheap (was like AUD12 or something).

 We took the puffy billy but most of us got separated… sitting in different cabin… fun sticking out the legs and taking photos. Was quite late after we return to Melbourne central. Met up with bs’s fren and had dinner at this Lebanese restaurant? Maybe not. Cant remember what cuisine but its like kebab…. With the meat and wrap… poor ym jus cant enjoy the food.. and it got real worse at nite… lucky him to have frens like us… we came up wif all remedy (for his tooth ache) that we could like garlic, chewing on the garlic, eating the garlic, rubbing with garlic to flossing the tooth, brushing the tooth which all din worked out for him. Alas, the most primitive method… gurgle with cold water… we were up wif him until like 1 am.. went over to the hospital where the entrance was like a maze. We took like 30 mins to find the entrance and just 5 mins of talking (was in fact shorter than 5 mins cos the medic just said that the doc was not in at this wee hour of the day. There is nothing we can do. Come again in the morning. Thank you) asking us to get our own pain killer.

 Nxt day morning 3 of us went to get our rental car. (seems like a damn long story telling. Mayb I shld consider a writing for trip advisor). Another stupid incident of the day. I passed 2 rental voucher to the counter, and he comes back to us with only 1 car. What the heck… made us queued for another 30mins to get another car. Kaoz. That’s kiam par x million if sean is there. Anyway ym was ready yet. Guess where he is….(bingo!!! at the dentist removing all the nerves that he got… whatever to relief his toothache lar).

 Aft that we drove off to great ocean road…. Somehow the GPS brought us on the inner route… and with prof uk ard we bashed thru the mountains to the great ocean road. (nah.. we cut across to the great ocean road.. leave out the bashing.. that’s for commando sean).. I think all of us got too fascinated by the ocean that we kept taking photos… we drove for like ages and finally came to our farm stay like 8pm? Look at the sky… the galaxy (just like wad u see on my galaxy S wallpaper) clear bright sky with the stars forming the milky way…. (of cos we saw Anatres).. Dinner was darn expensive and small portioned. Felt like we have been on chopping board…

(btw this photo is not fake hor… its taken by uk’s camera)

We went milking the cows in the morning nxt day. Greeted by the gay dogs… super friendly and fun to play with. One luv to play “fetch” while the other luv to play “arse”.. we went down to the 12 stones… left with only 10.5 stack? Took plenty of photos…with yoyo and hoops of cos (did I get their names spelled correctly? Pchan).. left the place after we took photos of all the caves and scenary. Ended up at town where the food are so so so much cheaper and so so so much bigger portion. Bought wine and a cake (or was it an apple pie) for our birthdae boy, hm. (he is so lucky that we celebrated his birthday twice overseas). Also bought some chocolate from the chocolate factory… its their rest day but the owner opened up the shop just for us. How nice… how can u resist a crowd of 13 pax eager to spend their money? Hahaha… We had bbq that night… saw some fight btwn the dog and cat over the food… did a celebration for hm… there shld b a video clip or something on FB.

Rested the nite in some freaking shit cold weather… cooked our own for breakfast. Thanks to ouyang mama for the cooking. Drove to Philip island for some penguins. The drive on the great ocean road is long and winding… had ice cream on the midway. We had countless of ice cream.. almost once everyday… the penguins are said to return to land ard 6pm. Drive from Sorrento to Philip island is abt 2hrs.

The ferry ride from Queenscliff to Sorrento is 1 hr. so we haf to be at queenscliff latest by 3pm… and I tell u we are really accurate about our timing to the minute or seconds. We drove the great ocean road to queenscliff and reached the ferry gate at 3pm sharp… basically we are the last 2 cars, after we load in, the ferry gate behind closes.. if we miss this ferry we have to wait for another hour or so and that means the penguins will b slping at their nest by then. We missed the first penguin though. But nevertheless we had some nice time watching the penguins walk and trip themselves. They r jus so cute…

 We left Philip island abt 7ish 8… and bought some fish and chips or was it seafood chips on the way. Drove back to Melbourne for the next 2 nights. Real lot of driving to do. Lucky we had auto cruise and  drivers to swap ard. Did we eat again after reaching Victoria hostel? I think not. We shld all b too tired to move ard. Probably bathe and koon…

 All the writings just for 4 days? Wooo… bear with me a while more. I think we spent 6 days in Melbourne… hmmm wad else did we do in Melbourne. I know we went to shop for some direct factory outlet. Bought a pair of gola shoe. Some tees. Ok. We went to crown casino at nite. They had buffet there. Cl and me din really want to have the heavy meal. So we did our own walking. Walked a round in the casino and got ourselves ready for the famous flame throwing outside the casino… aft tat we left and had peking duck for dinner. Bought some cup noodles to go with the duckie duck. Met up with the grp at hostel.

I think that was the last nite there…. Cant remember wad we do for 1 more day. Time just fly pass… we had to catch a plane freak early in the morning like 6.30am? did a morning exercise by walking frm the hostel to the southern cross stn at like 4.30 or 5am. Swee bo? Check in at the airport and settled dwn at Mcdonald for breakfast (didn’t I say we r good at eating…)

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haha….. no surprise tat tis blog is almost dead… basicalli nobody blogs here anymore. but dan it might jus b revived soon.

reason being…. after working at current place for 4 1/2 yrs…. (wooo this is a record holding for mi. haf not worked in a company that long)  it realli feels sad to leave this workplace. somehow it has to be done… i will probably miss the friends here… my jogging kakis… drinking partners…. etc. so many new fun friends over here. hopefulli there will b in my nxt new workplace….

so new job but old career… yes. will be flying around again. so i will post whenever i haf the chance……

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